I had many attempts to stop drinking and many relapses, before I got serious about wanting sobriety. I think for me, it was because at the time the perceived benefits of drinking, numbing out feelings, outweighed the downsides. I had to lose my job and wind up in hospital before I was seriously ready to stop. Even after that I've relapsed a couple of times - the last time was November and I don't even recal what triggered it, it was so seriously not worth it. I've had to do a lot of work on underlying psych issues as well, which has made staying sober easier.

I know we disagree on a couple of points, in that I believe that alcoholism is a disease and so think that I'll always be at risk of relapse. But I know it's totally within my control to choose not to drink. The difficulty is I still want to occassionally so I have to keep reeminding myself of how bad the downside is of drinking versus the upside of staying sober.

--splitimage